Chapter Ten
Misty came to a stop at the red light and looked behind her.
Dame slowed and maneuvered the big motorcycle up beside her window. His boots lowered to the asphalt as he balanced the bike and stared at her.
She rolled down her window, and slowly, she rested her hand in the breeze between them.
That bright-eyed man cocked his head, then leaned over and brushed his fingertips against hers, igniting the swarm of butterflies in her middle.
Just a touch and then the light was green, and he hit a gear and revved his motorcycle, then fell into line behind her, following closely. Protective Cat.
Her maps function dragged her through Salt Lake, and to the outskirts. When she was just a few minutes away from the address he’d given her, Dame passed her and slid her a glance as he shifted into her lane and led her in the rest of the way.
The one lane driveway was lined with old trees whose branches curved over the road like they were shielding the sky from this place. It was eerie and beautiful all at once.
Dame led her to a parking area beside a house.
It was medium-sized and painted dark brown with darker brown trim.
The garage was open, and the lanterns on either side looked like real flames.
Whoa, this place was fancy. The gravel here looked freshly laid, and he pulled his motorcycle in a loose circle near the mouth of the open garage, then used his legs to walk it backward until it was centered inside the garage.
He cut the engine and she parked where he pointed, right in front of the garage. A big charcoal gray pickup truck was parked in the other spot, and as she got out, she realized the parking area was bigger than she’d realized.
Closer to the trees was parked the truck from the other day. Marsden’s. It had a livestock trailer hitched onto it. The truck was still on, and the driver’s side door was wide open.
Chills rippled up her skin as she eased the door open. “Is everything okay?” she asked as Dame strode past her.
“Stellan’s in the cage.”
“The cage?” she asked.
A roar rattled the clearing, and she jumped hard, but Dame just offered his hand and led her toward Marsden’s truck like everything was normal.
He leaned in and turned off the truck, pocketed the keys and shut the door, then stopped to brush his fingertips against a huge dent on the bed of the truck.
“Fucking Stellan,” he muttered as he led her toward a narrow gravel path that led into the trees.
“Um, Dame? I’m a little scared. I think this is the part of the horror movie where someone dies.”
“Not you,” he said, his words dripping confidence. “I wouldn’t bring you here if I thought there was a risk.”
“Where is here?”
“My house,” he said easily.
Well, knock her over with a feather. “You mean you and your brother’s house?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder. Everything on that house was pristine, from the crisp lines of the trim to the black roof and matching, polished black gutters.
“No, that’s just mine. Marsden doesn’t even live in Utah, and Stellan has his own place closer to town.
“Stellan should live in a swamp,” she griped.
He belted out a single laugh. “He would terrorize a swamp. The city at least makes him more mindful. He might not want to mind all the rules, but his tiger is smart. He’s a survivor. Exposing himself will get him killed by the humans quickly. Or worse. Caged and experimented on. This way.”
He led her right at a fork in the gravel path.
“Um, I am healing from your claw marks, and I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
“I sell drugs.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Fantastic.”
“That was a joke.”
“Thank God. I can’t handle many more surprises.”
He snorted. “I do big corporate loans. I fund them. That’s my main nine to five job at least. I pick up side work here and there.”
“Side work doing what?”
“Whatever pays.”
“Okay, just making sure…you really aren’t a drug dealer, right?”
He laughed and pulled her close to him, gripped her shoulders, and looked her in the eyes.
“I don’t deal or do drugs. I barely even drink.
I can fix a hell of a lot of things though, engines included.
I just understand them. I get pulled out for tractors, big machinery, truck engines.
Hell, I get brought in to troubleshoot for public transportation at least twice a month.
I’m a worker. I had nothing else to do with my life in my off time with Stellan.
” He shrugged. “Now that’s changed. Now I have you. ”
“To do,” she joked. “Now you have me to do.”
He snorted and slid his hand to her ass and squeezed. “You’re going to get it again tonight if you don’t stop making your little jokey-jokes.”
“Are you going to claim me in your fancy house?”
“It’s not that fancy,” he disagreed half-heartedly.
But she’d seen the damn water fountain in his front yard and the circle drive in front of his house. “Nice try.”
“Are you ready to see him?”
“Him? I hope you mean Marsden.”
“Nope. Desensitization starts now.”
“I don’t want to be desensitized. I’m comfortable with my fear of him.”
“Not for you. For him.”
She scrunched up her face. “This is my literal nightmare.”
He cupped her cheeks and searched her eyes. “I am your shield. You’re safe. I swear it on my relationship with my brothers.”
“I’ve seen your relationship with your brothers. Swear on something else.”
He threw an arm over her shoulder and led her toward what looked like a huge red barn. “I swear it on your titties. I don’t play about those.”
That was better. He did seem to really enjoy them.
The closer she got to the barn though, something strange started to happen. Her mostly healed claw marks began to throb harder and harder, and then they began to hurt.
“Dame?” she whispered, pulling up the sleave of her scrubs. The scars were bright red and angry looking.
He ran his thumb over the smaller one, and she flinched at how much it stung. The smile didn’t exist on his face anymore as he dragged his attention to the open sliding doors of the barn. The soft glow of light from inside illuminated the gravel in front of it in a semicircle of gold.
“I can feel her,” a gritty voice said from the barn. “Bring her to me.”
Fully disturbed, Misty hid behind Dame as he led her into the barn.
She peeked around him to see a large cage in the back of the barn that looked like a prison cell, complete with cot, sink, toilet, and thick metal bars all around it. Marsden stood in front of the door.
“The locks are all in place?” Dame asked.
Marsden nodded. “I’ve checked them three times.”
He turned and she gasped at the huge cut across his jaw.
“It’s fine,” Marsden muttered as he passed by them and made his way to a sink near the sliding doors.
The second Mars had moved out of the way, she saw him—Stellan.
He wore a pair of jeans and nothing else. No shoes, no shirt. His arms rested on the bars, feigning a relaxed posture, but his eyes bore straight into her like daggers, and every muscle was tensed in his body.
A feral smile took his lips. “Hello, Rabbit. I almost got you tonight, didn’t I? It was close.” His voice sounded strange. Empty. Guttural. Wild.
“The tiger has pushed Stellan back. He’s been messed up for weeks.” Dame offered his caged brother an empty smile. “You’ve been a delight to deal with.”
“We can finish it,” Stellan said. “Just let me out. I’ll make it quick, I promise. She won’t suffer.”
Chills rippled up Misty’s arms. Stellan was terrifying.
“Over my dead body, brother,” Dame growled.
“That can be arranged. Come on. Let me have her, and then it’ll fix all of this.”
“Fix what?” Marsden asked. “You? Nice try.”
“It will. I promise.”
“Dude we can hear lies,” Dame murmured, pulling a chair up for Misty.
He held it steady as she sat in it. “Cunning as a coyote. Let me guess the next strategy. You’re going to tell us a story about how Rabbits help reset broken Cats.
And if you have her, you’ll be fixed and we can all go back to our normal lives.
I’ll be free of babysitting your animal, and you’ll be so well-behaved for the rest of your life, and we can all ride off into the sunset together. ”
“I’m not riding anywhere with any of you,” Marsden assured them as he held a towel to his bleeding face.
“That thing looks filthy,” Misty pointed out. “You’re going to get an infection.”
“We don’t get those,” Marsden enlightened her, and crouched down on the other side of her, studying the man in the cage. “I still can’t understand how it was you that got so fucked up. You were the best of us when we were human.”
Stellan shrugged his shoulders, eyes never blinking, never leaving Misty. “Just lucky, I guess. Can you smell her? She smells so good. A little tainted maybe by Dame’s scent, but that’s okay. We all make bad decisions sometimes.”
“Especially you,” Dame pointed out.
Stellan’s smile chilled Misty to her bones. “Especially me,” he agreed. He didn’t sound like he cared at all.
Something was so wrong with him. So dark.
Dame and Mars didn’t seem scared of him at all, but they had tigers inside of them to protect them if he got out. Misty had fragile skin, dull teeth, blunt nails, and a handgun in her glove compartment of her car, fifty yards away.
Marsden looked at the bloody towel. “Why do you always go for the face, man?”
“Because you’re vain. It’s a weakness,” Stellan answered coldly.
“I can stitch it,” Misty offered.
“Waste of time,” he muttered.
“By stitch, I mean staple it together for a few minutes and give your skin a chance to seal together and make the scarring less.”
He frowned. “You sound like you have experience with our kind.”
“Just with Dame,” she murmured. “And that one,” she said, pointing to Stellan. “Years ago.”
“When you became his Rabbit,” Dame uttered softly.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked. “What does it mean?”